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  I nodded. The magazine had tried to interview me after Vegas and I wouldn’t go along with the sensationalist concept they threw out so they ditched me. I really didn’t blame the editors. I just didn’t want to be seen in a nine-by-thirteen glossy on a bed of cards and cash in the string of my bikini and five-inch platforms on my feet (they had a deal with Skechers), and, I almost forgot, wearing a Stetson. I might have grandchildren one day. Heck, I might even have children one day, and one of them might want to become president. I had to plan ahead.

  “What’s the piece?”

  “The emotions Hold ’Em players experience during a poker cruise.”

  I pulled a face. “Kind of specialized, isn’t it?”

  “In the editorial meeting, they just got to thinking about the whole cruise/summer vacation thing and how it affects a competitive player. I mean, you go to Vegas, you are there to gamble and win. It’s easy to stay focused in that culture. Now, you go on a cruise, and you are tempted by the sun, sand, surf, the shopping at the ports, the whole lazy, do-what-you-feel-like thing. Plus some people have to drag along nonplayers and that’s a drain on the psyche. It’s a complicated issue.”

  “Good luck to you, then, uh . . .” I couldn’t remember him introducing himself, so I stuck out my hand.

  He grabbed my hand, pumped it and squeezed a couple of times. “Name’s Jack Smack.”

  I snorted. “It is not.”

  He shoved his chin in the air. “It’s my poker handle. I adopted it in real life to help overcome the SAD.”

  SAD for shy people. Great acronym. I struggled to hold a straight face. “Oh? Are you playing in this tournament, Mr. Smack?”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “I can’t do what?”

  “Call me mister. It’s just Smack or Jack or Jack the Smack. Mister takes away the trash punch.”

  “The trash punch?” I raised my voice in surprise.

  “Belinda,” Elva corrected me in a stage whisper. “This is a nice dinner not a fraternity party. There is no punch. You can ask for wine.”

  “What do you know about fraternity parties?” I demanded in shock as Elva giggled. I wasn’t sure I knew my parents after all.

  “Why were you telling the floor you wanted punch anyway?” Ben asked.

  “I was talking to Jack Smack.” I motioned to my right and looked down. Of course, The Smack was gone.

  Silence was passed around the table like the plague. Everyone stared at me. “We need to take her temperature,” Elva finally declared. “She’s hallucinating. She may have Montezuma’s revenge. How’s your intestinal health, pookie?”

  “Elva, we aren’t even in Mexico yet,” Howard pointed out.

  Callie and Stella giggled. Ben rolled his eyes. I peeked under the table. No Jack. I scanned the floors near the tables around us. No social phobics in sight. I signaled our waiter, who’d introduced himself as Armond from the British Virgin Islands. “I need coffee. Black.”

  Dinner wound down about seven thirty, the tournament started at eight, and I was supposed to be early. That left me only five minutes to run to the cabin to repair my makeup and take a Valium. Too bad I didn’t have any.

  The whole Jack Smack incident made me forget completely about Ian. He caught me by the arm as I made for the elevator along with dozens of other tournament hopefuls discussing strategy. “Hey, are we still on for dancing after the tournament? The Betcha Club on the top deck has a salsa band.”

  I blinked. Ooo, Ian was especially cute in clothes close-up. And, salsa was so sexy. Restraint, Bee, he was a baby.

  “I would hate to have to wait for you,” I said with a grin.

  “Oh, aren’t we diplomatic. You know I will be the one waiting for you, the poker star.” He put a hand lightly on my waist and leaned in to whisper. “And I don’t mind waiting. You’re worth it.”

  Now, Frank would have said no such thing. Frank was sexy in nuance, in suggestion, in testosterone. But I have to say that obvious was working for me right now, since Ian was the one standing here and Frank wasn’t. I could feel my mad at him rising up again in the center of my chest. I coughed, hoping to shake it out. I hated feeling so angry.

  “Okay,” I finally said, trying to brush off thoughts of Frank. “You’re on. I’ll meet you at the club after I play my last card. Maybe we’ll get lucky and sit near each other in the tournament.”

  A commotion at the other end of the dining room cut into my sad attempt to flirt. I’d been out of the game too long. I didn’t count Frank because I fought more than I flirted with him.

  “Help! Help! He was looking up my skirt. He’s a freak!” We turned to see a woman in her fifties jumping up from her dinner table, swishing her black lamé skirt around like it was crawling with a thousand fire ants. The maitre d’ reached under the table and pulled Jack Smack out by the arm. The dozens of diners who hadn’t yet made it out of the dining room doors paused, murmuring and pointing. Without thinking I rushed to the gathering crowd and called out, “It’s not his fault. He’s shy. I mean, he’s been diagnosed as a social phobic—you know, a pathological introvert.”

  “He’s a freak!” the woman shrieked.

  A tall earnest young man stepped out from the crowd. “Listen, ma’am, I am a lawyer with the ACLU. It is not politically correct to name-call the emotionally challenged. In fact, it is grounds for slander. The Anxiety Disorders Association of America would get behind this abuse.”

  “I didn’t call him a freak because he’s a nutcase, I called him a freak because he’s a Peeping Tom! He was under the table! He was looking up my skirt!”

  The ACLU lawyer shut up and melted back into the crowd. Guess criminal litigation for sexual assault wasn’t his specialty.

  “This, I am afraid, is grounds for removal from the ship, sir.” The maitre d’ said to Jack whose face was glowing red with shame. He was beginning to tremble. Sweat was rolling down the sides of his face.

  “I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding. He’s shy and sometimes people don’t know he’s there because he’s quiet,” I blurted. “Jack’s a freelance journalist, on a story, I’ll vouch for him. I’m sure he was under the table because he’d dropped his pen, right Jack?” What the heck was wrong with me? Jack might be the modern-day Ripper for all I knew. Although he didn’t look much like one, with his big puppy dog eyes, sucking his gap teeth as he nodded with pitiful obedience, gasping for breath, glancing from me to the maitre d’ and back.

  “Miss Cooley?” The maitre d’ asked with his tone whether I wanted to go out on this particular shaky limb.

  I nodded. Mopping his brow with the cuff of his dress shirt, Jack looked like he might crawl up and kiss me. I shot him a warning look. He bowed his head humbly as the maitre d’ began to give him a lecture about proper behavior at the dinner hour.

  “There you are!” Kinkaid hissed as she grabbed my arm. “We were expecting you to be early to the tournament.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “There was a problem—”

  “We have a problem of our own,” Kinkaid snapped. “Rick Santobella is missing.”

  Seven

  “What do you mean Rick is missing?” I asked Kinkaid as she propelled me with a turbo grip on my triceps through the crowd and into the elevator. Her glare must have been enough to ward off anyone wanting to join us, for when the doors closed, we were alone.

  “We were waiting for you and Rick,” she said, pausing heavily, “when Delia came running up, asking us if we had seen her husband. During dinner, he remembered he’d forgotten his lucky marker at the cabin. Apparently, he is on a diet, so chose to get it during dessert. He never returned. Delia went to the cabin and he wasn’t there, so she assumed he’d gone ahead to the tournament.”

  I could feel my heart rate accelerate, beating in the hollow of my throat. “He’s probably been waylaid by a fan and lost track of time.”

  “We can only hope that’s the case. Thanks to your brother, and the nonsense he was spreading earlier, al
l my high-profile players are panicking. We’ll be lucky to get the tournament off the ground tonight. I am counting on you, especially, to hold it together.”

  Heartwarming of her to be so worried about Rick. “Why me?”

  Kinkaid turned to me, stunned. “Because you work in advertising, that’s why. You understand appearances are everything.”

  I did? I thought people paid me to come up with creative ways to sell things.

  “Use some flash and dash. Cover up the trouble. You have the experience, so I expect you to open up the cards tonight.”

  “What do you mean?” It was time to let my panic of crowds take control.

  “You will have the mic to order the first pocket cards to be dealt.”

  “I don’t think we ought to play. Under the circumstances.”

  “There’s where you’re wrong, Belinda.” Kinkaid explained. “If we play, eighty percent of the ship will be occupied, and my security team will have a much easier time hunting for Rick than if all those thousands of people are wandering around on board with nothing to do, getting in our way.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. “What’s your plan to find him?”

  “That’s our problem, not yours.”

  The elevator stopped and the doors opened onto the second floor where I could see the glittering ballroom set up with hundreds of poker tables. Players filtered in, some pausing first at the bar set up just outside the door to grab a drink before checking in at the registration tables. Kinkaid propelled me forward again into the loudly charged pre-play atmosphere, which would morph by the last day of the tournament into one of quiet competitive tension.

  “Bee.” Delia jumped up from an overstuffed chair in the hallway. A woman in the security detail uniform of poker shirt and slacks, looking like Don Ho in drag, followed behind her as she ran up and gave me a hug. “I’m so glad she found you! You’re okay?” I nodded as she continued breathlessly. “But what about Rick? Where could he be? What I am going to do? I knew this was going to happen.”

  I patted her on the arm. “Miss Kinkaid assures me the cruise line is doing all it can. Meanwhile, while they have security checking for him, you should go to the places he might have gone—”

  “He was coming back to dinner!”

  “I know.” I felt so helpless. “Why don’t you go back to the cabin and see if you can find anything that might give you a clue to where he is. Maybe you overlooked a note or—”

  “We have the cabin sealed for security purposes,” Kinkaid interrupted.

  I turned to Kinkaid and raised my eyebrows and my voice just enough to make her nervous. “Surely you don’t suspect Delia of having something to do with Rick’s disappearance.”

  Of course they probably did, since most cops suspected family members first and likely the security on board was run by an ex-cop. Still, I thought I might intimidate Kinkaid into letting Delia do something.

  Kinkaid was fidgeting with the rainbow phone case on her waist, praying no doubt for a call to interrupt. “No, certainly we don’t suspect Mrs. Santobella.”

  “Good, then it won’t be a problem for her to go back to the cabin for another look around? Certainly a wife might notice something out of place that a total stranger searching the room wouldn’t.”

  “I’ll arrange it,” Kinkaid snapped, snatching her phone and pressing a speed dial number. Delia turned her big brown eyes on me in gratitude.

  “Let me know what you find out,” I said.

  Delia nodded as Kinkaid whispered instructions to the sentry. As they disappeared down the elevator, Kinkaid turned to me. “You certainly are meddling in things you have no business in.”

  “And you are volunteering me for things I don’t want to do. I suppose that makes us even?”

  Kinkaid pursed her shiny pink lips, ran her fingers through her fluffy hair and pointed toward the stage where sat the podium shaped like a huge hundred-dollar chip. “I’ll welcome everyone, then you take the mic and order the first deal, after that march on down to the empty chair at table sixty-six and play Hold ’Em. Good luck.”

  Table sixty-six—Ack. I hope Richard’s theory would hold true and I would win loads at the tournament. I walked toward Ian at table twelve. He winked and gave me a thumbs-up. Ringo sat two tables over and motioned me urgently to him.

  I strode over. “Hey, Ringo. What’s up?”

  “Where are your Gargoyles?” he asked.

  I felt on the top of my head then remembered I had left them in my cabin, expecting to have time to return to freshen up before the cards went into play. I swallowed hard, suddenly nervous. “Uh-oh, I didn’t have time to go get them.”

  Ringo whipped his shades off his face and put them into my hands. “Take these.”

  “Ringo! I can’t keep taking your sunglasses from you. What will you do?”

  Ringo grinned irresistibly. “My eyes lie better than yours do.”

  Kinkaid stuck me in the small of the back with a sharp fingernail. “Get going, Miss Cooley. We have a whole room waiting for us.”

  Delivering a grateful look to Ringo, who winked, I glanced at the glasses before I slipped them onto the top of my head. Wraparound mirrored Anarchys. At least they were consistent with the theme of the cruise so far.

  Some cruise tournaments operate like a bunch of satellite events leading up to one main endgame tournament, for which the winners of the satellites qualify—sort of like a mini-World Series of Poker. The no-limit $100/$200 tournament on the Sea Gambler with its twenty-five hundred dollar buy-in was different in that it was one long strung-out big event. Instead of a crescendo of excitement building each night, this tournament advertised itself as full throttle excitement from the first deal. It looked to me like there were at least 150 tables in the room, with ten players each. Everyone had the opportunity to rebuy once. Those who were eliminated from the tournament could stay and watch or they could go to the side poker room and play on one of tables there that dealt games from four in the afternoon until four in the morning when we were at sea.

  The buzz of conversation began to quiet as Kinkaid clicked up the stairs to the podium. I lagged behind her, hoping I wouldn’t have to spend as much time standing on-stage behind a giant chip with thousands staring at me. I nodded as I passed two familiar faces at the last table.

  I did a double take.

  Elva and Howard?

  I put it in reverse and leaned down to whisper in my father’s ear. “I think you’re in the wrong place, Dad. This is the Hold ’Em tournament.”

  “Then we’re in the right place, girlie.”

  “I didn’t know you guys played poker.”

  “I play bridge every Wednesday after my rose club,” Mom said defensively.

  Dad winked. There was a lot of that going around. “Don’t worry. I won my share of five-card stud when I was in college.”

  “Uh, Dad, Texas Hold ’Em is a little different game than five-card stud and bridge,” I began. “Don’t you think you ought to learn how to play before you fork over big bucks to buy in?”

  “What? Do you think you’re the only person who can go into a game not knowing how to play and win?” Elva huffed. She turned to Dad and raised her eyebrows. “I think Miss Ma’am here is acting a little big for her britches, don’t you?”

  Oh dear. I was going to have to kill Frank if I ever saw him again for talking me into this. Dad winked. Three of the eight other people at the table tried to hide their smiles. The other five were laughing out loud. Super.

  The speakers whined as Kinkaid moved the mic down to her mouth. “Welcome everyone. It doesn’t get more glamorous than this, does it?”

  Uh-huh, Kinkaid. I was just thinking that.

  “I mean, think about it—you are on one of the most gorgeous, state-of-the-art ships on the sea, headed to exotic paradises and about to play what is known around the globe as the Cadillac of card games—Texas Hold ’Em.” Kinkaid had just noticed that I was still down on the floor and shot me a killer look which
propelled me toward the stage. I guess my parents were on their own, headed to the poor-house.

  “I am Alyce Kinkaid, director of this no-limit championship tournament that boasts prize money of more than a million dollars. We pay to a hundred places and besides big money there is a secret prize for numero uno. Remember, the rules are traditional and a copy of them is available at each table. We will take a ten minute break every two hours. We call the game until the next night without notice, so play your best from the get-go. Now to call out the first deal with her favorite poker quote is one of our celebrity champs—Belinda “Bee Cool” Cooley. Have fun and good luck!”

  Applause and hoots of excitement filled the room as I made for the microphone. Favorite poker quote? Was this some kind of joke? Could the woman not have at least warned me? Suddenly the sound system began to play Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler,” the lyrics of which were, of course, the only poker quote that had sprung to my panicked mind. Ack. What was I going to do?

  I reached the podium and paused, looking to all the world like I was enjoying the hoots and hollers, when in fact I was scared to death. Suddenly I remembered what Frank had told me the last time he’d come to visit me in Houston. We’d gone to play a brick-and-mortar game at the back of the neighborhood sports bar. When we’d walked in, the poker room was nothing but guys. I’d begun shaking my head and Frank, reading my mind as he has a knack for doing, leaned into me and whispered the famous David Shoup poker quote and added: “He’s right, this is your best environment to play. You can clean up here.” He’d been right. I’d gone home with forty-one hundred dollars.

  I cleared my throat. The crowd quieted. Kenny’s song dropped to background noise. “Thank you, Miss Kinkaid. I realize all of you come from different walks of life as well as bring differing degrees of poker experience into the game. The beauty of Hold ’Em is that neither the most skilled nor the luckiest always wins. But one thing will doom you every time, even more than bad luck. I would like to send you all into the tournament with this from David Shoup: ‘The commonest mistake in history is underestimating your opponent; it happens at the poker table all the time.’ ”